Welcome to My Monday Morning. Some of you might be enjoying a nice President's Day off. I am at work trying to catch up on a day that the phone doesn't ring off the hook and 200 emails don't pour in. You know what I have often wondered about President's Day? -- I know you probably don't care, but I have you here, so keep reading -- How does a truck and car sale, or any sale for that matter help us celebrate two of our presidents? There is a new commercial for one of the car companies and its Annual President's Day sale. It shows a series of their trucks and cars with images of presidents in the background while a hip-hop beat plays. Eventually, you notice that the beat is also playing out Hail to the Chief. This came on last night and all I could think was "Huh?". How in the heck does buying cars, trucks or whatever celebrate American leaders? I know the knee jerk response is, by participating in capitalism, we are supporting the American Way.

I could go on and bash the whole idea but I will just ask this question: Do you think it works? Do you really think that people get out of bed on Monday and say, "Well honey, you know we don't have to go to work today. The government office we work in is closed today so I think we should go out and buy us a new car and maybe some jumbo-sized packages of corn chips from the warehouse store. You know, the president did say if we don't go shop, the terrorists might win. I have no idea what they win, maybe it is a life time supply of Turtle Wax. That would be a wonderful prize.

Enough about President's Day. I have been told recently that maybe you guys don't click on my blog link from the newsletter because I blab too much about things that don't have anything to do with Events. Personally, I wonder how you would know I wasn't talking about events if you didn't click on my link and start reading. Once you click and start reading, I get credit for the click and it is too late even if you change your mind. I have no clue if that is true or not. I just write the words and have no clue what happens after the fact.

So, there is an event coming up -- you know what? I know I just said that I was going to talk about events more than what I am having for lunch, the weather or things that just drive me nuts, I thought I might actually tell you about what I do every day. Would that be mildly interesting or would you all rather I just tell you about an author that is coming? Should I wait? Okay, I will do both. I will tell you about the things I do everyday and then I will tell you about my cool new event coming up. Deal?

Here is what I do on any given day: I get into work and find a cup of coffee. Sometimes, I steal whatever coffee is left in the pot then make a fresh one, sometimes I am early enough that I get to make the first pot. Coffee in hand, I settle into my desk and check the voicemails that came in from last night. Sometimes they are important, sometimes they are from the flatworm author checking back in to make sure I got the last 32 messages he left me and the 205 that his publicist sent. For a given event, I have to update our in-house event calendar, send out emails to get books ordered, receive the books that come in for the events, make certain that the books I ordered are at the right store, make sure the store knows they are having an event, and that they have everything they need for it. Sometimes what the store needs most for an event is an extra body to be in the store during the event. If that is the case, then I have to be out of the office and down in the store before it all gets started. If the store in question is in Virginia, like most of our stores, then I have to be through the District before rush hour hits otherwise I will never get there. Once in the store I get to act like a clown and entertain the customers while they wait for the author to show up. I actually like this part. I enjoy talking to customers and finding out what they like to come out to events for, how they found out about the event and what else they would like to see. On occasion, this backfires because this is how the flatworm author gets my information and starts his campaign.

Once an event starts, it just sort of runs. Authors know what they are doing, customers know that they are supposed to be quiet and listen, and I get to be the mediator that makes sure things runs smooth. When the author has stopped talking, the questions have stopped being asked and the books have all been signed, there are still chairs to be put away, books to be transfered around to other stores, stickers to be stuck on books, and sometimes authors to be driven to the train station. You would think that a massive corporate conglomerate like Olsson's would have an unlimited number of staff that would do all these things for us but we are smaller than you think and have a very limited number of staff members. Our staff wear lots of hats.

After the event has finished up, a wrap-up has to be sent off to publicists about how their author did, we like to keep a version in our system as well just so we know how the author did when then are in town again. Books have to be sent back to the publishers from events that didn't do as well as I had hoped. In a perfect world, I would order the exact amount of books that sell at each event. Too bad the world isn't perfect. The world is full of things like weather, traffic, absent minded customers and my favorite malady, apathy. Some people just aren't interested in the events that are booked. A book could be great, the subject could be fantastic and still not a soul is going to come out to an in-store event.

That sort of thing happens for one event, now imagine that multiplied by forty-five or more each month. I also set up and sometimes have to go out to and work off-site events. These off-site events are just like an in-store event, but they happen at an office, someone's house, a bar, or who knows. I have a small staff that does nothing but work these events, and I do my best to keep them busy. On occasion we get so many off-sites that everyone is out on a given night, including myself or Alicia trying to cover them all. I am not complaining about work. Work pays my bills. Work keeps me from spending my day at the gym and going into professional wrestling. I am just planting the seed that if you count up all the things I have to do on any given day not including the occasional things like writing a blog once a week, assisting in the grand opening of a new store, sorting out the accounting of a client that does events on consignment, picking out touring authors from catalogs or eating lunch, the days are pretty full. Full to the point that I am lucky to get out of the office with less than 50 hours a week.

That is the junk I have to do every day. Like I said, I am not complaining just talking about events. Speaking of events, we are having some this week. We are also having some nest week. I told you about the Jon Clinch event at Crystal City (See the blog entry if that makes no sense). I am lucky enough to host another good author the day after the Finn event. This book is called The Tailor's Daughter by Janice Graham. Janice is a lovely woman who resides in the middle of Middle America in a mythical town called Kansas City. Kansas City is probably the most famous city named after a state it is not in. I have never figured out how you get a city named after another state. I grew up in Idaho, I am pretty sure there is no town called Colorado Hills there, but I digres.

Janice Graham wrote a lovely book set in Victorian London about a young girl who looses her hearing at age sixteen from a fever and follows her father's footsteps into the world of tailoring on famed Saville Row. I have yet to read this book but it is working it's way up my "To Read" list. I have only read blurbs about the book but I have spent a good amount of time on the telephone with Ms. Graham. She is a lovely woman. We had a nice long chat one afternoon about playing Clue and most of our emails get signed off with a speculation as to who committed the crime. She is a very engaging speaker and if her personality in real life is a fraction of what it is on the phone, Tuesday the 27th should be the best night to get out of the house and come listen to an author. Don't take my word for it, I am only an overworked event coordinator. Read the following reviews:

"The Tailor's Daughter is a Victorian novel in both style and length, and a great pleasure for both of those reasons…. A feisty heroine meets a cold-hearted aristocrat and wins him despite himself, his villainous father and conspiring relations. It is a rich dance of a novel with every ingredient of the popular romance: near-death illness, adoring older suitor, wonderful clothes, great romantic love, hope, despair and disgrace…, a stolen child and a happy ending. It has everything but a Maharajah -- oh, I forgot: there is even a Maharajah." —Philippa Gregory, author of the New York Times bestseller The Virgin's Lover

The Tailor's Daughter is an engaging story about a strong and gifted young deaf woman… it is also a testimony to the value of sign language in the education of deaf people everywhere… Like Veda Grenfell, I became deaf at a young age, and like her coming to terms with my deafness was a slow and sometimes challenging process. But I also share with her the exhilarating and empowering experience of learning to communicate in sign language…there are no limits on what a deaf person can achieve.—I. King Jordan, President, Gallaudet University

A good time will be had by all, come on out to Dupont Circle. There is a Krispy Kreme right there. Nothing like a hot donut and a good chat with a feisty and fun loving author. I am going to do my best to get out there for the event. You know how my days start out. I tried to give you a glimpse as to what sorts of things happen over the course of the day. They are sometimes different, but they are quite often just like I described, and to give you one last idea about how the day ends up, it is now after 11pm. I am at home on my laptop. I started out today around 9 am and had a couple hours out to eat and to drive between one place and the other. So I may not make it, but I will do my best to get there.

Goodnight.

I have mentioned where I grew up once before haven't I? I swear I have. In fact, I know I did because I have the power of hindsight and the ability to look back through the blogs I have posted. I know I said it, just stick with me. When I was a kid, we used to get snow. Now I am not talking about snow like here in DC, where 2000 flakes fall from the sky and the entire population starts panic-buying milk and duct tape, then cuts out of work early to flee the city in droves. I am talking about feet and feet of heavy, wet, sticky snow followed by cold so fast, deep and intense that the tree sap freezes and causes the trees to explode. I remember one year when it was so cold, my father had to light a small fire under my mother's car so it would start.

Right, now you are thinking, "Sure, and it was SO cold the flames froze. Tell us another about Paul Bunyan and his blue ox." But the fire event was real. What I am trying to say is that I grew up with snow. I am not unfamiliar with the concept of inclement weather. No offense to anyone who grew up here or lives outside of the District. I read in the paper that there were 200 accidents in the district the last time we had a snow storm. There were 20 in Montgomery County. That tells me that country folk drive better than city folk. It could be the fact that all the people in DC came from somewhere that has never heard of snow, let alone seen it or tried to drive in it.

What does all this ranting about snow and cold have to do with events? Funny you should ask. One of the things people forget to do while they are in full panic and grabbing toilet paper off the shelves like sharks at dinnertime, they forget to go to book events where I have placed a very nice author. The author braved the elements, the staff at the store braved the elements, but when the crazed panic of harsh weather grips the nation, a book event slips the customer's mind. You might think they would enjoy something to do while they are stuck at home and not going to work or school. Sometimes the power does fail in this area when the weather goes south and Tivo doesn't really work without power. If only those people had a good book to read while they were holed up in the dark, wrapped in toilet paper.

I keep my fingers crossed that the snow never comes because nothing will kill an event faster than bad weather. I think I might start taping all book events and simulcasting them on our website for a small fee. That way, if people were trapped in their homes by the 2 cm of snow that fell from the sky on Friday night, they could still see and hear what went on at Dupont, Lansburgh and Crystal City. Right now I don't have the ability to be in three places at once and film all three events, perhaps in the future I will gain these abilities.

For those of you who are living in the present and can brave the weather, please allow me to regale you with what is going on. Over in Crystal City, Aviva Goldfarb will be dishing out samples of goodies she made from her book at lunch time (12-1pm). Six O'Clock Scramble is the book's title for those of you keeping track. She and I met for the first time back in November at the University Club book fair. We talked about food and books. Good common ground for a Bookstore Event Coordinator and a Cookbook Author. Not only is Aviva an author, chef and mother of two, she is very friendly, drop-dead gorgeous and has a link to Share Our Strength on her website. SOS is a great association for all you foodies to get involved in. Google it and Aviva. I will wait...

Okay. Welcome back.

Friday night is going to be night of rocking festivities given the fact that it is Charles Darwin's Birthday! In honor of that fact, Edward Humes is going to be in our Lansburgh store reading from his new book "Monkey Girl". Why would I bring an author to a store on Darwin's birthday? Ah, because Ed's book touches on the touchiest of touchy subjects, the greatest of great dividers, that which shall not be named in any school system without some poor kid getting converted to home schoolin', Evolution! I love anything that people have to fight about. I also enjoy the idea that someone came up with the term "Intelligent Design", then can't have an intelligent discussion about it. Personally, I struggle to believe that we came from apes. Apes don't destroy everything around them and then point the finger at someone else. --Wait a second. I remember reading something recently about Koko (the sign language gorilla with the orange kitty), she had a bad day and tore her sink off the wall. When her trainer person asked her about it, she blamed it on the cat. The cat ripped the sink out of the wall. She lied. So maybe we are descended from apes. It would explain why I have to shave twice a day.

Our other event going on Friday night is a tag team event. Ed Schwarzchild, and his girlfriend Elisa Albert are going to be in Dupont reading from their books. How cool is it they are both writers and touring together. This will either cement their relationship or tear it to shreds. Ed is reading from his book "Responsible Men" and Elisa will read from her collected stories, "How This Night is Different". I asked them at the outset if they were okay to share the stage even though the concepts of the books are very different. Ed has assured me they can be friends and play nice while they are "working". We shall see, won't we?

I am torn between where I will be. When I started typing this, I had it down in my head where I was going, but after re-reading, I might have to drive around a bit. I am for sure going to see/chat with Aviva again. I have to ask if she tried my recipe for a rockin' PBJ I told her about last time we talked. As for the evening? I am on the fence. I like to support new authors; I like a good controversy. Tough choices. Good thing I live in a country where I am given the right to do just that: Choose. Wish me luck in my choice and I will wish you luck in yours. Even if my choice is different that yours.

Editor's Notes: The 200 accidents in the district might be wrong. This number was questioned by Chris Callahan, our pop music buyer and long-time DC resident. He knows the roads and is probably right.

No mention was made in this blog of the most frightening of all road hazard, "Black Ice", which is ten-times more dangerous than regular ice because it wears puffy jackets, backwards ball-caps and might call you "Dawg". Ice is Ice. It is whatever color it sits upon. Calling Ice a color is like saying, blue water has more fish than green water. It is all water and it is all clear. The color is only a reflection. Join with me and end Ice-ism. Call it what it is and stop making 'Black' a negative.

The 16th is Charles Darwin's Birthday. It is known as Darwin Day by those in the loop and will soon be a holiday the same time we clone a human and win the war on terror. Has anyone been to the National Portrait gallery in London? There is a wall of busts there and Darwin's is the smallest one. Discuss among yourselves.

Aviva Goldfarb is a fox and if she is married I hope her husband doesn't punch me in the nose. The Blogger will share his PBJ recipe if you email him and ask. It really is good.

We have an event coming up.

Like I mentioned last week, I hear some of you out there in the wide world of Blogger-land like to hear about how I choose the events that we end up hosting. I will be perfectly honest with you, sometimes it happens like this:

Phone Rings.
Event Boy, "Hi, this is Tony."
Generic Publicist, "Hi Tony, I have an author that is a perfect fit for your store."
Event Boy, "What day are you looking to put your perfect author in one of the six stores that I babysit? Oh, and what store were you thinking."
Generic Publicist, "Whatever store you think the author would be best in and whatever day you think would be best?"

Did you catch that? See how they have the author that is a perfect for my store but they want me to pick the store and the day that will be the best. If the author was a perfect fit for my store, why do I have to try and fit them in? More often than not, I am trying to fill in an event calendar just as much as they are trying to get an author booked in a store, so I give in and try to make the best fit possible. Sometimes the author has written the greatest book ever about the discussions between flatworms on the bottom of the ocean. A riveting read to be sure, but not something that is going to bring out 50 or 60 people, it might bring out one or two but one or two people doesn't make for a good event. Events are hard enough to predict without the books being about flatworms.

So I pick out the store that I think will work best for the subject of the book. For example, if the book is about the Civil War, I would put the book out in Old Town. The people there are big on history, Civil War, boats and for some reason, dogs. They go crazy for dogs out there. If the book is about music, think-tank stuff or literature, then I would say Dupont Circle. Law stuff and famous people go to The Lansburgh/Penn Quarter or Arlington/Courthouse, and so on. And then there's our new Crystal City store, still evolving.

So that is how things happen sometimes.

Then again, sometimes it goes a different way. Sometimes I read a book that gets to me. A book that touches something inside me and makes me want to host an event for that author.

The book I want to tell you about is one of those books. Remember when we were kids and the nice teachers in our grade school said we had to read a great work of American fiction? To most of us, that meant Huck Finn. I had received the book some years earlier from my Grandmother on my Father's side. She was kind of the distant Grandmother, the early black sheep of her family I imagine. She was married, divorced, ran off to be a truck driver, I think, then came back to Idaho and remarried. She smoked like a chimney, I am certain she drank a bit and she painted. There were one or two paintings around the house that she had done that I used to stare at for hours. Anyway, she bought me Huck Finn when I was too young to really understand it. Given that I was too young to understand it, I ended up drawing on the pictures in the book. Later on, I was ashamed of drawing in my nice book and I threw it away. Huh, I had forgotten that part until just now.

So I had the book, and I had read the book, but I didn't understand all of what was happening in it.

This is where most of us come into the story. We read the book because we had to and them dismissed it.

I didn't dismiss it though, I read it and started to wonder about the other people in the book. If we were going to get the chance to read about Tom Sawyer, why weren't we going to find out about Widow Douglas? What about Jim and Miss Watson and Pap Finn? What happened to Pap Finn to make him spend his days in a jug of Moonshine? Ah, Pap. Why did you drink so much? What sort of thing could you have done that made you want to hide in a bottle for all time. Why was the Devil chasing you Pap?

Well, guess what? Someone wrote a book about Pap Finn. That someone is Jon Clinch.

Jon has come up with a great story about Pap in all his Whiskey-Soaked glory, that doesn't give it all away about Pap, but it fills in some of the gaps that Twain left us with. Jon has agreed to come around to our new Crystal City location on the 26th of February and talk about Pap. I am going to go out there and hear what he has to say. I would love you all to join me.

Toss aside all that post-pubescent baggage and think back to when you were twelve years old and just wanted to read a book. Maybe you didn't want to read it but someone said you had to. Well, I am saying you have to. Read the book, get lost in the story, write up the book report and bring it to me at Crystal City.
I will look forward to seeing you all there. If you are all good, I might even bring along some of Bliss' forty-rod.